\chapter{Motivation}

Developing countries and especially rural areas have to contend with poor telecommunication infrastructure, and where they exists they are plagued with problems with as intermittent power loss, equipment failure and sparse population densities. These factors impact negatively on the desire of commercial telecoms to erect telecommunication infrastructure there.

Mobile Ad Hoc Networking using 802.11 WiFi is a cost effective way of proving network connectivity. VoIP can take advantage of this infrastructure, thereby providing residents with a method to communicate remotely. This equipment is, however, still prone to the same problem the more expensive equipment is faced with -- which brings us to the most important part .... How do we offer reliability in the face of an unreliable network infrastructure?

This research is therefor just as relevant to the man on the street as it to telecommunications service providers. Added reliability will make consumers more likely to use the systems.